“Mr. Burris will be seated or won’t be seated on the basis of what happens in a court. I don’t think it’s in the people of Illinois’ interests for us to color that seat,” Cleaver told reporters on Capitol Hill. “That seat can’t be the black seat. If that happens we begin to lose the progress we made.”

Those comments appear at odds with views of Rep. Bobby Rush, who has implored Senate Democrats to seat Burris because there are currently no African-American members of the Senate, and called the currently all-white chamber the “the last bastion of plantation politics.”

Once again, another race-baiting Democrat gets away with making racially charged remarks (more here) that would get a Republican grilled, broiled, flamed, basted, and fileted from all corners. Race clearly isn’t the issue at all here, but leave it to an opportunistic jerk like Rush to make a mountain out of something that isn’t even a molehill. But I’m sure this issue plays well to many of his constituents back home, eh?

We’ll never move forward on the issue of race as long as people in positions of power like Rep. Rush continue living in the past. Maybe he’s a close friend of Rev. Wright’s?